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Healing Music: The Power of Music for Healing

My friend has been waxing poetic about Spotify for some time now, and I have steadfastly refused her advances to join the musical bandwagon because I have very limited mental bandwidth for technological things.

However, the other night, we were listening to an amazing array of music and she sent me home with the admonition to sign up for the free trial and listen to Stevie Wonder’s “Knocks Me Off My Feet” when I got home. I did, and was immediately taken back to a scene in my adolescence: me on the floor, in front of the turntable, making cassettes for my friends and holding the Songs in the Key of Life album, with giant headphones on, singing.

I instantly knew Spotify and I were meant for each other.

As I was listening to the song it dawned on me that I might still have that very album in my possession, which would be a miracle considering all the moving we have done. Imagine my delight when I went down into the garage and located it amongst the seven wrapped stacks of albums, on the first try, as though I was being divinely guided.

I have always adored music. It is the thread in my life that winds through all of the most memorable moments and connects me to things long past. I have the same relationship with smell, but music is the sensory experience that touches me the most. One of my most beloved experiences is when a movie soundtrack imprints on your being and stays there long after you leave the theater.

“The best music is so profound that you will not even realize that you are hearing it, it will affect you and arouse the emotions in you that it is supposed to, and yet its hallmark is that you may not remember the exact tones and notes that have been struck.” Music critic, Raghava Menon

In my other life, our house was hard-wired with a sound system. Every morning I would wake up and turn on the master switch, plug in my iPod and hit play. It drove my kids nuts, because I had a bad habit of listening to the same songs over and over, which didn’t matter to me. The music playing was like having a soundtrack to my life.

It does not escape me that my life was a bit unreal, just like a movie.

When this other life came to a crashing halt, for the first couple of months I had my iPod + headphones with me all the time, as a way to block out the world. I felt safe in the cocoon it created for me.

After we moved out of our house, I still loved music, but I loved the silence even more. Music played less and less. Where I once drove around in the car with the music playing, I found myself turning the volume down to zero. I needed to hear my own voice and songs got in the way. Or maybe they just contained too many memories and I wasn’t equipped to handle them.

Music has made its way back into my life, and I am finding great joy in songs I used to love. Experiencing the memories attached to them is not as difficult, in fact, I would say it is almost a release. Perhaps the transformational singing workshop I took part in was the catalyst for ushering music back in — I spent quite a few weeks crying my way through songs I had to sing. Now I just find tremendous joy in letting music move me the way it used too.

I have boxes of CDs and endless playlists on iTunes and I have also used Pandora, but there is an incredible ease and intuitive quality to the Spotify experience that makes exploring music so much fun. If you love music, go to Spotify and sign up for the free trial (I am just an effusive consumer who loves to share a good thing when I find it). I love the search feature that brings up playlists for every kind of musical desire: sleep, meditation, relaxation and healing.

“Music therapy treats the whole person, not just the body. The magic of music lies in its unique capacity to reach out simultaneously on many different levels – physically, emotionally and spiritually, making it a powerful tool for change.” (from Dynamic Turnaround)

Have you made the healing elements of music part of your healing repertoire?

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Who is Dianna Bonny?

Hi, my name is Dianna Bonny. It’s my mission to candidly share my journey with you. For me, it’s all about the healing: to create a radiant healing energy for others who have befallen a similar fate. Together, we can forge beautiful lives of belonging and connection. Thanks for joining me today! I look forward to hearing from you.